


Duplicity

by sternfleck



Series: Arcana Imperii [8]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Anal Sex, Begging, Bottom Armitage Hux, Chancellor Hux, Established Relationship, Gentle Dom Kylo Ren, M/M, Possessive Kylo Ren, Sexual Roleplay, Spanking, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Title Kink, kind of a TRoS fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:55:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24433930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternfleck/pseuds/sternfleck
Summary: Chancellor Hux would never betray the First Order. But that doesn’t mean he and the Supreme Leader can’t have fun pretending. In bed, they explore the concept: what if the Chancellor were a Resistance spy in love with the Jedi Ben Solo?Set in the world of “Duel of the Fates,” the leaked alternate script for Episode 9.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Arcana Imperii [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694788
Comments: 14
Kudos: 53





	Duplicity

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Двойственность](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26562784) by [fandom SW IX - Duel of the Fates 2020 (Our_Own_Star_Wars)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Our_Own_Star_Wars/pseuds/fandom%20SW%20IX%20-%20Duel%20of%20the%20Fates%202020), [Lenuchka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenuchka/pseuds/Lenuchka)



> I’ve teased spanking AND spy roleplay in multiple stories in this series, but never delivered...until now. No one asked for this. Nevertheless, I was determined to write it.
> 
> Not sure if their motivations make sense outside the context of the rest of the series. If you’re new to the series and you need background, this is a pre-negotiated D/s roleplay scene where their typical power dynamics are inverted.

The Supreme Leader’s private quarters in the Capitol are, as always, bitterly cold. But under Hux’s bare stomach, the Supreme Leader’s thighs are warm even through his leggings. Ren’s gloved hand is warm, too, where it rests at the top of Hux’s inner thigh, stroking him just to the rim of his slick, prepared hole.

Hux wriggles on Ren’s lap. Ren has a tendency to get lost in the moment, petting Hux or staring at some part of Hux’s body as though it holds a particular enchantment for him. It’s Hux’s job to keep the scene on target, and Hux has never been one to shirk his duty.

“Aren’t you going to punish me, Supreme Leader?”

Ren sighs, rising from his reverie back to full consciousness. His hand clenches around Hux’s buttock, palming it, not gently, but not hard enough to truly hurt. It’s just as Hux likes it. Ren is clever, when he applies himself. He’s learned well how to serve Hux’s needs.

“I need more information first,” murmurs Ren, stroking Hux’s thigh, his arse, his dimpled lower back. “This is an interrogation. Your transgression is serious, Chancellor. Even with all my powers, I never saw one sign of your disloyalty. What could make you betray the First Order?”

Hux arches into Ren’s touch. For a moment, he shuts his eyes and lets the pleasure of Ren’s hands on him nudge him away from his tight focus on the scene. But he pulls himself back. There will be time for pleasure. Right now, Hux is obliged to answer the Supreme Leader’s question.

“I did it for the man I love,” says Hux airily. The way he might speak if he truly were a Resistance spy caught up in such foolish ideals. “Love conquers all. They don’t tell you that on the Dark Side. But in the Resistance, we believe in love.”

Ren’s other hand, warm leather up Hux’s spine. His touch is reverent. It makes Hux’s breath catch. When the Supreme Leader’s hand settles at Hux’s nape, Hux tilts his head back, hoping for more contact. Ren rewards him with fingers through his hair.

“Love,” echoes Ren, leaning close. He says it the way he says _Chancellor_. “Who is he, this man you’ve fallen for? Who could tempt you away from the First Order? All this time, I thought you cared for your work in the Order most of all.” 

Hux fights to keep his voice steady, already lost to Ren’s touch. Ren fingered Hux open in preparation for this scene, but took care to avoid Hux’s prostate, tormenting him until Hux had to bite his lip so as not to beg. Now Hux aches for every brush of Ren’s fingers on his skin.

“Ah, Supreme Leader...this is nothing you could understand. He’s your absolute opposite. A handsome Jedi Knight.”

“A Jedi?” Ren’s lips are close to Hux’s neck, his breath hot through the neatly trimmed hairs at Hux’s nape. “They’re extinct. I’ve slain them all. You must be mistaken.”

Ren ghosts his lips over Hux’s skin, nibbling softly. His bare chest is warm where it presses against Hux’s back, sheltering him from the cool of the room. Ren kisses lower, sucking at the juncture where Hux’s neck and shoulder meet.

“He’s a Jedi master,” says Hux with effort. “He fights like a dream. You’d be astonished how well he knows how to use his lightsaber.”

Ren smirks against Hux’s neck. The Supreme Leader straightens his spine, leans back, adjusts his erection in his leggings in a smug, demonstrative way. Hux doesn’t need to peer over his shoulder at Ren to know what he’s doing. The routine is familiar. Ren is far too proud of his own cock, and Hux does far too little to discourage his arrogance.

Hux adjusts his position over Ren’s lap, getting comfortable. When Ren’s hands return to Hux’s body—one at his lower back and one on his thighs—Hux lets out his breath in a subtle sigh. It’s so good, the way Ren touches him when he’s gotten Hux worked up and wanting. The way he drags out Hux’s pleasure, giving Hux more than he thinks he could ever endure.

“So, Chancellor.” Ren brings his hand down roughly on Hux’s thigh. “You’ve become a spy for the Resistance to win this Jedi’s love. What does he offer that you can’t get in the First Order?”

To get a glimpse of Ren’s face, Hux pushes up on his elbows on the thin dark mattress, glancing over his shoulder. Ren strokes between his shoulder blades, but doesn’t push him down.

“He’s a good boy,” Hux murmurs, drinking in the sight of Ren’s pouting lips, his eloquent eyes. “He’s always obedient. He— _ah_ —he’s interested in me because I’m nothing like him.” Hux stammers when Ren’s hand moves higher, to stroke the sensitive skin at the inside of his thighs.

“You’re certainly not like him. You’re far more dangerous than any Jedi, Chancellor. Too dangerous to be left unchecked. To fraternise with this Rebel Knight of yours.”

“You wouldn’t believe how handsome he is, Supreme Leader. If you saw him, you’d understand. You’d fall in love too.”

“I would never allow love to cloud my judgment,” says Ren, haughty.

For a fraction of a moment, Hux almost believes him. But no. Ren’s judgment has been clouded since the _Finalizer_. Hux hides his smile by burying his face in Ren’s mattress.

Ren continues, still in character for the sake of their game. “What does he look like, this Jedi of yours? Is he as elegant as you are, Chancellor?” Ren spans Hux’s waist with his big hands, stroking him up and down. Hux fails to bite back a moan.

“Supreme Leader. _Ah_. No, he’s big. Strong. He can lift me, pin me up against the wall. He could do anything he likes with me. But he only does what I say. Whatever I want.” Hux turns to look at Ren again, and lifts one hand to the Supreme Leader’s cheek. “He’s so clean. Such a smooth face. Not one single scar.” 

With one fingertip, Hux traces the line of Ren’s scar, down his forehead, his cheek, his neck, all the way to his shoulder. If their position allowed it, Hux would kiss him there, up and down the schism that divides Ren’s face. But instead Hux presses the pad of his finger softly to the nerveless skin, as though he could make his touch feel like a kiss, the way Ren does with the Force.

Ren’s eyes fall shut in response, his lashes long and dark. He’s far more handsome than any Jedi Knight could ever be. But Ren has requested this game tonight, and it’s too intriguing for Hux to break character and ruin things now.

“His hair is shorter than yours,” Hux says cheekily, tangling his fingers in Ren’s fluffy tresses. “So I can see his ears.”

Ren scowls down at Hux. “Sounds like he doesn’t have any style.”

“Yes, well, I mostly see him without his clothes.”

This time, with a scoff, Ren does push Hux down into the mattress. With his hand still in its glove, Ren brushes one finger over Hux’s slick hole. Hux tilts his hips and gasps into the sheets.

“Tell me his name,” Ren commands, darkly imperious. “I want to say it to his face when I destroy him.”

He grasps one of Hux’s buttocks again, possessive. But his other hand is at Hux’s jaw, stroking along it with an indecent tenderness that makes Hux blush.

“ _Ben Solo,_ ” Hux answers. For the sake of the game, he throws a slight moan into his voice, like a starlet in a romantic holodrama.

Ren’s long gasp of feigned outrage is wholly rewarding. “That son of Rebel scum doesn’t deserve you. You’re the Chancellor of the First Order.”

“There wasn’t anyone who could fuck me properly in the First Order,” Hux says harshly, with an ironic glance over his shoulder at Ren. “I had to go to the Resistance to get what I needed, Supreme Leader. You understand, I’m sure. I wouldn’t have resorted to espionage if I’d had options closer to home.”

Ren is biting back a grin, the colour high in his cheeks. He pets Hux’s thighs again, broad-handed, eager.

“You need someone right here in the Order Capitol who can meet your needs. You know I’ve always kept things strictly professional between us, Chancellor. But your betrayal calls for extreme corrective measures.”

Hux can’t resist a smirk at that. Professionalism, from Ren? Mustafar would have to freeze over first.

“I understand, Supreme Leader. I’ve broken my oath. I only wanted to be a good soldier for you. But we all have our weaknesses.”

“I wouldn’t have thought your weakness would be good dick,” Ren whispers, barely maintaining his character. “If I’d only known, you wouldn’t have had to compromise the Order at all.”

“Is that so? Do you have a solution to my problem, Supreme Leader?”

Hux shifts his hip to the side, grinding into Ren’s erection, where it’s pressed upright under the waistband of his leggings. Ren’s next breath comes out rough. His hands tighten on Hux’s thighs.

“You’ll never need to look at a Resistance fighter again,” Ren assures him. “I’ll show you the power of the Dark Side.”

Hux tries to roll over in Ren’s lap, but Ren pins him in place with effortless strength.

“Discipline first, Chancellor. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

This is indeed the part of the scene Hux requested specifically. Ren wanted to use this game to address his own unfortunate relationship to the Light Side of the Force, and Hux agreed, as long as Ren would spank him. Being spanked is something of a guilty indulgence for Hux, a truly debauched adult pastime of the sort Hux has only heard of in holoporn and brothels. But the pure physiological pleasure of it overrides any shame he feels at being bent over the Supreme Leader’s knee. Ren’s hands are enormous, and so strong, and each swat of his palm sends a jolt of heat straight to Hux’s cock every time.

“Yes, Supreme Leader. Go ahead.” Hux forgets himself, giving the order with his usual expectant arrogance. Breaking character. “That is to say, I humbly accept your well-chosen punishment for my disloyalty.”

“That’s a good Chancellor,” Ren whispers, palming Hux’s arse. “You know where you belong. Not with the Resistance. Right here. With me.”

Hux wiggles in Ren’s lap. This is the best part of their game, the most dangerous part, when all their feigned conflict dissolves into a tenderness that’s at least halfway genuine. It terrifies Hux every time, the words they say to each other. But it’s all pretend. He’d deny all of it afterwards, if Ren asked.

Ren never asks. He doesn’t need to ask. He can read Hux’s mind.

“With you, Supreme Leader,” Hux repeats. “Please, don’t let the Light corrupt me. Please touch me. Please, you’re the only one who can—”

Ren’s hand lands on Hux’s backside with a slap of leather that resounds through the room as pleasure rings through Hux’s body and cuts off his words. Hux cries out and braces himself with both hands. His cock twitches where it’s pressed between his hips and the mattress, leaking pre-come.

“Good Chancellor,” Ren whispers, kissing the back of Hux’s neck again. “You know what you need. I’m going to give it to you. You’d never have become a spy if you’d known how to ask me for this.”

“No, Supreme Leader, never,” Hux gasps. He pushes his stinging skin up into Ren’s gloved hand. Ren palms him, soothing the ache.

“Do you want more, traitor?” Ren asks, his tone playful. He’s improvising. This is a nickname they never discussed. It makes Hux feel weak in his legs and belly and chest, like he really could betray the First Order and still come home to Ren’s smirks, Ren’s kisses. To Ren, who would be ready to make a game out of it all.

“Yes, Supreme Leader. Another, please.”

“What if I make you beg for it? Would you beg for me to restore your loyalty to the First Order?”

“I’ve said please.” Hux falls back into his ordinary voice, vexed at having to wait. “Go on. Do your worst.”

“Beg me,” says Ren, lips hot and soft against the back of Hux’s neck. “Swear your loyalty. This isn’t even a punishment, not for a needy, pretty traitor like you. This is a reward, isn’t it, Hux? A reward for you being good and loyal. You’re aching for it, aren’t you?”

Ren, the telepath, has to know full well how Hux is aching. Even without looking into Hux’s head, it would be obvious to anyone from the way Hux’s dripping tip smears against Ren’s thigh with every twitch of his hips.

“I swear, I’m loyal to the kriffing First Order, you know that, Ren, just, _please_ , give me another.” 

Ren’s next swat to Hux’s arse grinds his leaking cock into the mattress and makes Hux whine deliciously. It’s dizzying, perfect. Pure pleasure with the barest hint of pain. Ren is right—in spite of the narrative of their spy game, this isn’t punishment at all.

“So good,” Ren murmurs. “You’re so good. You belong to the Dark Side, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Hux moans, raising his hips. “Always, Supreme Leader. Please don’t stop.”

Burning lust fills Hux’s entire body. His nipples are stiff in the room’s cool air, and he’s making shameful little noises through his nose, grinding up into Ren’s touch, wanton.

Ren hits him again on one side of his arse, then the other. Hux chokes on his gasp, and Ren strokes his back, as if to reassure him. 

“No Jedi could ever give it to you like this.”

Another smack from Ren’s gloved hand, harder this time. Another, and another. Hux’s stretched hole clenches around nothing, empty and needy.

“Supreme Leader, I’m loyal, I belong to the— _ah!_ —the First Order, yes, again, _please_.” 

“Good Hux. Fuck, you’re so hot like this. You belong to your Supreme Leader, don’t you? You belong to me. To Kylo Ren.”

Even through Hux’s haze of desire, he thinks this is taking things a bit far. But this is Ren’s scene, Hux’s personal gift to him, during this time when the Force is giving Ren trouble, plaguing him with visions of the Light. Ren can say what he likes to soothe his own uncanny woes, and Hux will play along, because as long as Ren can keep himself clear of the tense duality of Light and Dark that tore him apart when he was younger, their Empire will stand strong. This is only a game, in the end. Nothing binding.

“I belong to the First Order,” Hux repeats, because games lose their fun when they’re too easy.

Ren slaps Hux’s backside once again, his hardest yet, before falling backwards onto the bed, pulling Hux after him. He rolls over and pins Hux underneath his broad chest. Hux’s hair is falling into his eyes, but when he moves to push it back again, Ren takes hold of his hands. His calloused thumbs stroke the centres of Hux’s soft palms.

Hux wriggles under Ren, enjoying the weight on top of him and the friction of Ren’s expensive sheets on the hot, raw skin of his arse. Ren is gazing down at him, the Supreme Leader nose to nose with his Chancellor.

“You’re mine,” Ren whispers. “Say it. The Light can never have you.”

“The Light can never have me,” repeats Hux sweetly.

Ren frowns. “That’s not the important part.”

Hux smirks, tries to kiss Ren to shut him up, but the Supreme Leader holds Hux down and leans back, out of reach.

“You don’t belong to _Ben Solo,_ ” Ren snarls, thumbs tracing tender lines down the sensitive insides of Hux’s wrists. “ _He’s_ not the Supreme Leader of the Galaxy. He’s just a Jedi. Worthless. Deluded. His power is inferior. He’ll never win.” 

“Well, Supreme Leader. You know how I feel about power.”

Hux lifts his hips, pressing against Ren’s stiff cock. It’s so big, leaking slightly onto Hux’s stomach, and Hux is so slick and stretched already from Ren’s careful attentions, so ready. Hux has always been patient by nature, but it’s not easy to wait when all he wants is Ren inside him, above him, powerful and obedient.

“I do, Chancellor. I know.” Ren’s lips brush Hux’s cheekbone, his sideburn, the shell of his ear.

“There’s only one person in the Galaxy with enough power to satisfy me,” says Hux, his face buried in Ren’s brushed, fragrant hair. “I was never meant for Ben Solo, you understand. But I was desperate. I _am_ desperate, Supreme Leader.” He cants his hips, for proof. “Won’t you show me what I’ve been missing in my trysts with the Resistance?” 

Ren tugs off his gloves, at last, and tosses them to the floor. He drifts his hand down over Hux’s chest, his soft belly. Gives Hux’s cock a cursory stroke, before settling at the edge of Hux’s hole, fingers tracing a circle around Hux’s rim. Hux throws his head back and his hips up, parting his legs wider for Ren’s touch.

“You’re ready for me, Chancellor. So wet and slick. You’ll feel so good around my cock. But I’m not sure you deserve what I can give you. Are you loyal? Are you mine? Tell me.”

“Please, Supreme Leader. Please fuck me. Make me yours. For the First Order, for our—”

Ren takes his fingers away, and Hux whines, eyes snapping open in frustration. If this were one of their ordinary encounters, he’d have his hands in Ren’s hair by now, tugging hard, hissing orders. But this evening, Hux has agreed to let Ren take control, with negotiated limits. So he restrains himself.

“That’s not what I want to hear.” Ren’s voice is low, soft, intense. He nudges his nose against Hux’s cheek. “Chancellor. My pretty traitor. You know what you have to say. It’s so easy. Just a few words, for the sake of our game. Unless you’re afraid this isn’t just a game. Perhaps all you’re saying about me is true.”

How vile of Ren, to take things there. To make this dangerous. Hux’s cock twitches at the insinuation, dribbling pre-come into the rough cloth of Ren’s leggings.

“Why don’t you undress, Supreme Leader? I don’t have any proof you even want to fuck me at all, with your big cock tucked away like you’re ashamed of it.”

Ren raises up on his elbows, snorts, amused. Rolls his eyes at Hux’s stalling. With the Force, he tugs his leggings down and tosses them aside. His cock slaps against Hux’s stomach, blood-hot and silky to the touch.

“There, _Chancellor_. Happy? My big dick is going to ruin you for anyone else. You’ll never be the same. Your little hole will be aching. So stretched. Is that what you want? You want me to leave you loose and sloppy and full of my come?” 

Hux wrinkles his nose, even as his hole contracts, needy and empty. That’s not how he would characterise his desires, but then, he and Ren rarely have the same vision when it comes to vivid erotic descriptions.

“You have my permission,” says Hux, forgetting for a moment that in this game, Ren is supposed to take what he wants, to reclaim Hux for the Dark Side.

“It’s not permission I’m waiting for,” intones Ren, showing his teeth.

Unrelenting, Ren slides down Hux’s body and positions the head of his cock at Hux’s entrance, using the Force to tilt Hux’s hips up at just the right angle. He circles Hux’s rim with his dripping head, pushing in just far enough to stretch Hux slightly open and make him choke on his moan of need. 

“Yes, _yes_ , I—oh, please don’t stop, please, I need—” 

Ren pulls away. “Don’t assume I don’t need this too. I’ve wanted to wreck your pretty little ass since I joined the First Order, Chancellor. But you don’t deserve it yet. Not until you tell the truth. This is an interrogation,” Ren says, not for the first time. Like he’s reminding himself that this is only a game, only play-acting.

“I’ll tell you anything you want to hear,” says Hux in a rush. A disclaimer. He can’t be held responsible for what he’s about to say. He can’t hold himself responsible for wanting to say it.

“I could take it out of your head,” says Ren softly, stroking Hux’s cheek. “Then we’d both know. We’d both know who you belong to. Wouldn’t we?”

Hux leans sideways into Ren’s touch until Ren’s fingers are at his lips.

“As if you don’t know already,” Hux says in his real voice, cold and tight, daring a sly glance into Ren’s darkened eyes.

Ren’s breath catches, and his lips quirk up at one side for just a fraction of a second, just enough to show one of his sharp eyeteeth. His eyes flare, pleased and surprised.

“That’s my Hux.” He drags his cock across Hux’s entrance again, making him squirm, and presses a wet kiss to the side of Hux’s face. “Come on, Chancellor. Say you’re mine, so I can fuck you so hard. I need to come inside you, to fill you up.”

Hux thinks of the way it feels when Ren spills inside him, when they’re both so far gone with pleasure it’s as though they’re hardly separate at all. The heat, the stretch, the sheltering weight of Ren above him, strong and sweat-scented, clumsy and skilled and careful all at once. As if Hux would ever deign to let anyone else serve him in this way, let alone a Jedi, a Rebel operative. Though, if the loathsome insurgent had Kylo’s face, even without his grand scar...Hux might not find him easy to resist.

“I belong to you,” Hux whispers, deliberately coy. “I’m yours, Kylo Ren. No one else’s. Only yours, forever. Show me the power of the Dark Side, won’t you, Kylo? Please. I need to be reminded.”

“Hux,” Ren says, nosing at his cheek. “That’s good. That’s what I wanted. Not so difficult, right? Easy,” he murmurs. His fingers slowly trace a circle around Hux’s rim, where the lubricant inside him is threatening to drip.

“Please, I’ve said what you wanted me to say. Don’t deny me anymore. Can’t you feel how hard I am for you? It hurts, Supreme Leader. I need to come.”

Something gleams in Ren’s eyes at the mention of Hux’s pain. Hux doesn’t like to be hurt, so Ren doesn’t hurt him. But there are times when Hux suffers discomfort nobly, like a sacrifice for Ren, and the Supreme Leader drinks it in, never taking it for granted.

“You’ve learned your lesson, haven’t you, Chancellor? No more dalliances with the Light.”

There weren’t any to begin with. Ren is the one who struggles with his allegiances. Hux has never wasted time indulging in foolish self-doubt. His devotion to the Order is total, fixed, and certain. But Hux shakes his head, compliant, all the same.

“Never again, Supreme Leader. There’s no comparison. How could I ever choose Ben Solo over you?”

The tiniest flicker of emotion passes across Ren’s solemn face. Anyone else would miss it, but after so many years with Ren, Hux knows his every secret expression, even if he can rarely determine what they mean.

“You’ll never have to,” Ren vows. His voice shakes. He pulls Hux’s thighs wide apart with the Force.

Though Hux has taken Ren’s cock countless times before, the sheer volume of it never fails to overwhelm. Ren has prepared him well, but when he pushes inside, even just the tip of him stretches Hux so wide that he moans, high and shameful, unable to hold back his noises. Ren moves slowly, giving Hux time to open for him. Hux tilts his hips to give Ren access. His breaths are harsh, torn out of him, and he shuts his eyes tight with pleasure.

When Ren is inside him to the hilt, Ren’s hips rest against Hux’s buttocks, where the skin is still sore from the swats Ren gave him with his gloved palm. All Hux’s thoughts fall away as his senses take over. Ren’s sweat, his soft hair on Hux’s face, the way Ren, too, is making helpless noises at the tight heat of Hux around him. The way Ren moves his hips, gently at first, then with more force. Hux clings to Ren’s shoulders, not sparing the sharp fingernails Ren craves on his skin. Ren snuffles into Hux’s ear, and Hux, in his head, feels a shadowy projected echo of Ren’s pleasure at this pain.

Hux doesn’t realise at first that he’s begging, saying _please please please_ and twitching his hips up to meet Ren’s, failing to get the rough fucking he needs. As always, when Ren reduces Hux to pleading for his cock, it sets off a cascade of shame and pleasure that leaves Hux even more desperate to get what he’s asking for. 

“Supreme Leader,” Hux hisses, with great effort. “Not so gentle, ah, show me the Dark Side, Kylo, please, I need more.”

Ren picks up his pace, driving into Hux with long thrusts that graze Hux’s prostate and make him gasp and whine. He holds Ren tighter, one hand tangled in his hair. Ren lifts his head, and Hux has a glimpse of wild dark eyes before Ren kisses him, hard, licking into Hux’s mouth, claiming him, eating up the moans that rise rough out of Hux’s throat.

Each hard thrust of Ren’s hips pushes Hux into the Supreme Leader’s thin mattress. His back will bruise from the stone slab underneath, but when they’re in Hux’s bed tomorrow night, Ren will soothe each bruise with scores of hot kisses. The abundance of Ren’s affection, the bottomless depths of his desire...Hux could lose himself, could surrender completely to the uncontrolled pieces of himself that scare him the most, and Ren would still be here, with his bad jokes and his dangerous games and his faith in Hux, his _loyalty_... 

Hux comes all over his belly, hot and sticky, in an orgasm that pulses through him in waves and clears his mind of everything but the heat in his gut and the dark perfect weight of Ren on his chest, Ren’s mouth hungry and glorious on his bared throat.

As Hux’s climax wanes, the friction of Ren’s belly on his cock begins to hurt, and a few embarrassing high pained noises escape from Hux’s lips. But Ren is close, his thrusts messy, and it only takes Hux’s hands on Ren’s taut buttocks, pushing Ren inside him as deep as he can go, before Ren spills too, coming inside Hux with a sweet cry that could be ecstasy or agony. Hux tenses around Ren’s cock as best he can to prolong the pleasure, and Ren moans again, filling Hux with another spurt of come.

Ren collapses on Hux, knocking the breath from him, nuzzling at Hux’s chest with his teeth bared. He scoots down the bed, kneeling between Hux’s legs. With thorough, clumsy, attentive strokes, Ren kisses and licks Hux’s sensitive stomach until he’s clean of come. When Ren looks up at Hux, his eyes are dazed, their volatility transmuted into something hazy and satisfied.

Hux tips his head back at Ren, inviting. Ren crawls up the bed again and settles next to Hux, claiming the bed’s lone thin blanket and curling his broad body into a crescent shape under it. Hux is already growing cold, but Ren seems unconcerned, not offering to share. Unlike Hux, Ren has never suffered in the cold. Even on Starkiller Base, he rarely bothered to wear a coat. Another of the many advantages of the Force.

Then, according to Ren, the Force comes with certain drawbacks as well.

“Do you still feel the pull to the Light, Supreme Leader?”

Hux is half disappointed at himself for falling so easily into Ren’s terminology. After so many years with Ren at his side, the Force is no longer wholly a mystery to Hux, but he still prefers to speak in specific, measurable quantities.

Ren stares at Hux with those hazy eyes. His lips are still flushed, but his pupils are smaller, his eyes liquid and golden-brown once more. He blinks once, slowly, and swallows, gazing out into the empty air of his sparsely furnished room. Then the Supreme Leader shakes his head.

“I’ll be on my way, then,” Hux declares, sitting up, not caring that the mess dripping out of him will soil Ren’s sheets.

Predictably, Ren pouts. He grips the edge of his thin pillow in a childish fist, eyelids heavy.

“Stay, Hux.”

“It’s too early to sleep. I have ordnance requests to ratify.”

He’ll ratify them from his own comfortable bed, but Ren doesn’t need to know that. The Supreme Leader chose to set his mattress on a dramatic slab of stone against all practical reasoning, and Hux isn’t about to dredge up that old argument again.

“We don’t have to sleep. You have your datapad. Work here. Stay. It helps with the Light.”

“Your mystical struggles are no concern of mine,” says Hux, though they very much are. More than Hux likes to acknowledge, their Empire hinges on Ren’s stability. If their enemies ever rise again, it will be because Ren has lost himself to this madness that rises in him at times, like an illness that cuts him off from his reason and his loyalty alike. A roiling, solitary chaos, where Hux can never follow him.

“Stay,” says Ren a third time. “You swore it. You said you were mine.”

Hux scowls. “That was only a game, Ren. The inability to separate fantasy from reality is a sign of an unsound mind.”

But he settles back against the rough stone headboard, shivering at the cold, and puts his hand on Ren’s head, in his coarse, silky hair. He sits there, his fingertips ghosting over the few threads of silver at Ren’s temple. Ren leans into Hux’s touch until his breathing evens out. In hardly any time, the Supreme Leader falls asleep.

Ren won’t sleep for long. He never does. He wakes from nightmares, twitching and paranoid, reaching for his ‘saber hilt to slaughter long-dead enemies. Even on the _Finalizer_ , Ren sought Hux’s presence to soothe his nighttime visions. Their strange bedroom games have always left Ren in a state of uncharacteristic calm. They’ve played this particular game before, and they’ll play it again, the next time the pull to the Light grows too strong in Ren’s head and threatens to spill over.

For now, Hux slides off Ren’s uncomfortable mattress and makes a trip to the ‘fresher to clean himself up. On the way back, Hux retrieves his datapad from the sharp-edged chair by the chamber door. He takes one of Ren’s cloaks from the closet, too, wrapping it around his shoulders to keep himself warm.

In Ren’s bed again, Hux opens the first of the ordnance requests sent from Commander Sellik’s division. Sellik has the authority and the intellect to approve all such requests herself, but on particularly critical subjects, she still seeks the Chancellor’s advice. It’s a clever move on her part, to flatter Hux’s ego. As if she still needs to ingratiate herself to him. She’s already his protégée, third in the First Order’s line of succession.

But thoughts of Sellik and thoughts of the Order’s distant military operations give way to thoughts of Ren. As he scrolls through his datapad, Hux again lets his hand rest in Ren’s hair. Ren’s sleep is deep, and he doesn’t move, even when Hux shifts closer and strokes his scarred cheek.

What is it about this game of Ren’s? After these scenes, Hux is always left wondering why it fulfils Ren to venture into such disquieting territory. Hux as a Resistance spy, and Ren as some altered version of himself. Split in two, somehow doubled. Light and Dark. The spectre of Ben Solo and the truth of Kylo Ren.

Ren is obsessed with this essential duality he sees in himself. But when Hux looks at Ren, he doesn’t see a Jedi lurking, waiting to emerge. He’s only ever seen Ren whole, as he is. One man.

 _His_ man, Hux thinks with a swell of fondness. Then he shakes his head. Such thoughts won’t do, not outside of Ren’s silly bedroom scenes. Not in ordinary life. 

He turns back to his datapad, to the First Order. That’s where his true loyalty should lie. And that’s where, in the end, his loyalty will always be.

Since Ren is the Order’s Supreme Leader, then this, too, is one more service to the Order. To sit beside Ren while he dreams. To wear Ren’s ragged cloak, to wrap up in the scent of his skin. To play his games and make unwise confessions.

To stay. To stroke Ren’s lovely, dark, dark hair.

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone keeping track of the Arcana Imperii timeline (hi, you’re absolutely amazing!), I didn’t put a year to this instalment. I meant it to feel timeless, since Kylo’s struggle with the Light recurs repeatedly over the years. But Kylo has some grey in his hair, and Hux has chosen Sellik as his successor, so...if you made me pick a year, I’d put this story close to the start of DotF, and close to the end of their Empire.
> 
> I'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/sternfleck) and on [tumblr](https://sternfleck.tumblr.com/).


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